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Education

Harvard Joins Peers Dropping SAT, ACT Requirement for Next Year (bloomberg.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Harvard College has joined peers in a major -- albeit temporary -- shift in college admissions: It's dropping the requirement for standardized testing for the class of 2025, as the pandemic has restricted access to the SAT and ACT. From a report: "We understand that the Covid-19 pandemic has created insurmountable challenges in scheduling tests for all students, particularly those from modest economic backgrounds, and we believe this temporary change addresses these challenges," Harvard said in a statement Monday. Ivy League peers Yale University, Columbia University and Dartmouth College are among other U.S. schools that have temporarily dropped the test requirements. A tally of higher-education testing policies shows that more than half of all four-year colleges won't require applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores for fall 2021 admission, according research released Monday by FairTest, a nonprofit that has led the "test optional" movement for 30 years.
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Harvard Joins Peers Dropping SAT, ACT Requirement for Next Year More

Harvard Joins Peers Dropping SAT, ACT Requirement for Next Year

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  • particularly those from modest economic backgrounds

    What? No — all pupils are locked down at home and forced to use "remote learning", which didn't work [wsj.com]. For all.

    So the test-results would dip, but they would dip for all — and would still help pick better students.

    Which, of course, begs the question of what "better" means... Is it still those, who've demonstrated the ability to learn — and did learn — in school?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's easier to use remote learning if you have a computer, internet and a quiet room. All things many children lack.

    • particularly those from modest economic backgrounds

      What? No — all pupils are locked down at home and forced to use "remote learning", which didn't work [wsj.com]. For all.

      So the test-results would dip, but they would dip for all — and would still help pick better students.

      Which, of course, begs the question of what "better" means... Is it still those, who've demonstrated the ability to learn — and did learn — in school?

      Yes, it kinda sucked for all student. Talking to several friends around here, a number of them complained about the lack of material being covered, so they hired a private online tutor for their kid. So even though it sucked for the well off kids too, they did have extra resources to cope that aren't available to the poor.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        So even though it sucked for the well off kids too, they did have extra resources to cope that aren't available to the poor.

        Which was/would've been the case without the pandemic anyway.

        If you're looking for the most-prepared applicants, you shouldn't care, how their preparation came about.

        And, if you aren't, then whom are you looking for?

  • They prefer other kinds of people. Sorry if you're one of those people who do well on tests. These universities aren't really about that kind of thing any more.

    • And you propose what? How would you select the ones who would maximize the educational opportunities they have? Harvard isnâ(TM)t yet for people who have non-academic talents. They donâ(TM)t have unlimited capacity to take everyone.

      • Harvard isn't yet for people who have non-academic talents.

        I think you're agreeing with the GP's point - Harvard recently won a racism lawsuit [forbes.com] that allows them continue to use non-academic "personality ratings" for admission, even if there's fairly strong evidence that racial bias is a significant influence when judging that criteria and it "just happens" to favor some races over others in a politically-expedient way.

    • They prefer other kinds of people. Sorry if you're one of those people who do well on tests.

      If your only skill is doing well on tests, then no, they don't really want you. They want people who are actually going to be good and successful. Test scores are only a proxy and if the proxy doesn't work, they aren't interested in it.

      • If your only skill is doing well on tests, then no, they don't really want you.

        The GP wasn't talking about people who are only good at tests, they were talking about a "certain kind of people" stereotyped [forbes.com] as only being good on tests.

        They just don't seem to be the group with the political power to swing things their way right now.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • So much for these institutions being an elite group of students.

      On of the major problems with the Ivy League schools is that you don't have to necessarily be an elite student to get in. Coming from an elite family and playing an upper class sport like lacrosse is the best guarantee of getting in. As far as Harvard goes, being an elite student alone just means that you qualify for the lottery. Having an alumni for a parent and participating in rowing is how you actually have a good shot of getting in.

  • If you want to keep out a group of people who scores high on tests, just stop using the tests.

    It's certainly going to make it harder for any more Asians to sue Harvard in the future over this, when they can no longer point to evidence that Asians do well on tests but aren't accepted.

  • will not improve anything (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @11:40AM (#60189482)
    There are a lot of people who hate on the standardized tests. I understand why. They've got flaws. The people who can afford test prep and nice laptops for their kids have an advantage. Some schools prep their students way better for the tests than others. These tests have problems.

    The bigger problem is that the alternatives are all far, far, far worse. The tests may be imperfect but they are meritocratic. And when someone rails against a meritocracy, I immediately get very, VERY skeptical. What are you going to replace them with, and what are the consequences of dumping them? Think carefully.


    The tests are actually fairly decent at their purpose, which is to answer this question: how prepared is a person (academically) for college-level material? Grades are very local. If my kid gets straight A's from a bad inner-city school, they are NOT as well prepared as the B-level student from the suburban district that holds real standards. On the other hand, when a college sees an inner-city student who scores a 32 on the ACT... they know immediately that this person has an extraordinary brain. That's undeniable hard proof that someone's mind has real potential. It doesn't guarantee that they'll make it through college, but they're probably worth giving a scholarship to.


    Going test-blind means that the universities will have even more ability to pick whomever they please for whatever reasons they want. It won't make college admissions better. It will make them worse. I get that maybe universities should waive the requirement for testing, temporarily, because of COVID. But dumping them as a metric? Some people think that dumping testing would suddenly free all the K-12 teachers to become enlightened scholars and that educational quality would shoot through the roof. Don't kid yourselves. People who don't like oversight always promise that they would be sssooooOOOOOOooo productive if you just let them do whatever they wanted. Hahahahah yea, welcome to the real world where people perform better when they're watched.

    • What are you going to replace them with, and what are the consequences of dumping them? Think carefully.

      A portfolio. Students should spend high school building a portfolio of achievements they can show off to college admissions. This makes the work on admissions more difficult but it will also be more effective.

      Answering a multiple choice question about some element is not useful. Documentation of an experiment designed and conducted by the student demonstrating how these ideas can be put into action shows competency.

      We have done this for years with the essay, where students demonstrate their competency in co

      • A portfolio? Get real. Only so many kids can edit the yearbook, or be president of the XYZ club, or whatever. In the end, it would be better for them to concentrate on, you know, school. Learning stuff. That what school is supposed to be about, not building a "portfolio".

        Geez.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          A portfolio? Get real. Only so many kids can edit the yearbook, or be president of the XYZ club, or whatever. In the end, it would be better for them to concentrate on, you know, school. Learning stuff. That what school is supposed to be about, not building a "portfolio".

          A portfolio covers everything, not just extra curriculars. And maybe we should be limiting what students go to university and college - it's not a path for everyone.

          There are plenty of ways to work on a portfolio throughout highschool that

        • Well, as I pointed out in my post, it would require changes in the way high school is taught. Rather than have a big final test at the end of the semester, each class could build up to a project that utilizes the material learned in class. Students would have to be creative and create a project without the teacher holding their hand through each step. Most projects would have an accompanying report (or in some classes just be a research paper).

          For example, in history a student might conduct archival researc

    • Show me a fairer, more merit-based way of measuring academic achievement and capabilities, and I'll listen.

      The only real alternative I see - using high school grades - is not realistic. One school's A's are another school's C-. Nevermind the potential for admissions fraud at the local level.

      Maybe the most desired schools are just finally admitting that they don't REALLY care about scores or grades. Maybe they just admit who they want based on whatever subjective criteria they choose. (Mostly money from the

  • The best degrees elite parents can buy for their children at birth.
    Academic degrees today are just pieces of paper the well off purchase. And no longer any indication that an individual is capable of doing any job.
    From everyone gets a trophy to everyone gets a degree. What have things come to.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

  • 2020 Is exposing a great many truths. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @12:25PM (#60189622)

    This is the year we learned that the number of days kids spend in classes and the grades they get have nothing to do with whether they graduate from high school or get admitted to college. In the past, schools would add days to the end of the year to make up for unusual events during the winter on the justification that every school day mattered and those kids needed those days or they could not be allowed to graduate - makes one wonder if it had more to do with state education funding mechanisms that went out-the-window with COVID...

    This is the year we learned that colleges do not need to know what grades a kid got in high school, or see scores from standardized tests to make decisions abut admissions. Hmmmmm... maybe it's more about the cash flow into college and all those federal student loan dollars since the previous administration nationalized student loans and raised the dollar limits...

    This is also the year many businesses are learning that huge numbers of workers do not really need to be in cubicles all day as visual evidence that entire layer of middle management has something to manage; the good ones can work remotely and self-manage and be just as productive or even more so while saving the companies a lot of cash on facilities and usually overlooked resources.

    This is the year we discovered that viruses apparently have political parties. It's terribly dangerous to have large numbers of people get together for some politicians and causes, but perfectly safe for large numbers of people to gather for other political parties and causes. Who'da thunk it?

    This is the year we're going to see what matters more to people: the secret ballot, or election honesty. If we go to mail-in ballots they will either be trackable and tied to individuals, in which case election people will know which people voted which ways and we all lose the right to be private in our choices (and gain the vulnerability of voter intimidation and threats), or they will have no traceability and there will be now way to know if the votes were cast by legitimate voters or if some voters cast many votes. The original principle of people showing up in person, being verified to be eligible, then casting anonymous ballots may die this fall and with it a long-assumed cherished right.

    This is the year we are finding out just how much travel is necessary, how non-vital things like movies and concerts and sporting events are to the population.

    And this is certainly the year many people are finding out how well they truly get along with the other people in their immediate lives ;-)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "This is the year we learned that colleges do not need to know what grades a kid got in high school, or see scores from standardized tests to make decisions abut admissions. Hmmmmm... maybe it's more about the cash flow into college and all those federal student loan dollars since the previous administration nationalized student loans and raised the dollar limits..."

      Horse shit, and this "observation" being made regarding Harvard admissions no less. Harvard, sucking at the teat of federal loan guarantees, r

      • I never mentioned Harvard by name, but you did, so the question is: why? why specifically defend Harvard which I did not mention? Also, why assert [falsely] that I said anything about Harvard "sucking at the teat of federal loan guarantees"?

        Since you brought them up so defensively, I am inclined to ask a few points about them now:

        Like many "ivy league" institutions, they have pestered their alumni for decades for support, and have developed a massive endowment. Harvard may well be in a financial spot now wh

  • At least they are being more honest. Academics and merit have not had much to do with who gets to go to Ivy league and other universities for a while now. At a lot of universities identity politics has far more of a determining factor on acceptance than your grades, your test scores or any other form of merit. Your political activism for progressive causes is the second determining factor.

    The days of getting into a good university by studying and or working hard as an athlete are long gone. The prestige a l

  • All the elite colleges know they hold a ticket to a life of ease -- even if you do very little in school you're going to get a management consulting or investment banking job at the end, or make enough wealthy connections to carry you through life. Less than 4% of applicants who aren't donating a building, aren't a star athlete or don't have some extenuating circumstance get in. Anyone in the "regular student" cohort who would even be considered has perfect or near-perfect SATs because they already have eno

  • alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lcall ( 143264 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @01:05PM (#60189764) Homepage

    Some criticize schools (or anything/anyone) for a variety of reasons. Some that I have read about as being accessible and budget-conscious, even (in one case) if one has to start by learning English: accredited online universities that have interestingly sustainable models and, I gather, good quality:

    BYU Pathway Worldwide and associated programs. It requires a Church affiliation but not necessarily membership (I think). I think tuition is much lower especially if you do the year of English etc first (if I understood from their site). Bachelors programs (like IT, business, others) are available, programs excellent, and is also suitable for those who need to first become qualified for entering a university (edit: i.e., learning English which is used in curriculum, and other basic skills), then provides that university. More info is in Wikipedia and I have gathered a bit of info including linking to a news article that explains it well I think, here: http://lukecall.net/e-92233720... [lukecall.net] .

    And: https://www.wgu.edu/ [wgu.edu] (also mentioned in wikipedia): state aid available from multiple states it seems (per wkp). Others have commented about it in this discussion, and praised it in other HN discussions, IIRC.

  • Subject line (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @02:10PM (#60190042)

    Harvard Joins Peers Dropping SAT, ACT

    At first glance, I read that as "dropping SCAT".

  • To lower the quality of the education they give you.

  • As long as the tests delivered the college large number of White kids with great scores they were happily using the tests. Blacks and minorities complained these tests are not fair, and no one listened.

    Then Y2K happened. Flood gates opened from India and kids hypercharged on academics poured in. Spouses with Masters degree became home makers and devoted all their energies on the kids. You can see it across the board in spelling bees and jeopardy tournaments and in the standardized tests. If you go purely

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